History has rarely been kind to periods of transition in Bangladesh’s political life, nor have political actors. Moves by reform-minded elements within both civil society and the interim administration to hold a referendum on July 26 have predictably ruffled political feathers. Responding in characteristic fashion, leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have hit the streets canvassing against it.

The public rationale offered is to defend parliamentary supremacy, but politics is rarely that simple. Looking at the past, one can surface explanations to understand the mechanics of BNP leadership’s resistance to reform through a referendum.

In times of transition, politics becomes about managing the future, but only powerful actors get to manage.

The Fear of Losing Control

At heart, the resistance to holding a referendum is about control. Political control over reform agendas. Over reform sequencing and over who stands to gain or lose legitimacy from different choices. BNP fears losing control of the reform agenda. Forcing reform through a referendum rather than negotiation empowers; Civil society, Technocrats within the administration, and Institutional interest groups at the expense of political actors.

BNP has spent years out of power, from the wilderness of jail cells to diasporic exile. The last thing the party wants is to enter a future election disadvantaged by legally binding reforms that lock in institutional neutrality, fairness, and accountability. July 26 represents a threat to the party's plans to dictate the pace and scope of reform.

Claiming Ownership of Change

Political transitions are as much about marketing and branding as they are about negotiation and substance. If reforms can be branded as the product of party leaders rather than as systemic reforms inevitable with or without direct political input, parties like the BNP prefer it that way.

Marketing the substance of reform, such as election reforms, judicial independence, and constraints on executive authority, as party achievement goes a long way towards claiming ownership of change. Such achievements can then be leveraged at the ballot box. Populist ambiguity trumps technocratic specificity in mass politics. Accepting reform through a referendum means accepting someone else’s change.

Process Vs. Substantive Politics

Another reason why BNP is opposed to reforms coming through referendum: it shifts the locus of political competition from personality to policy.

For decades, Bangladeshi politics has been about two (or sometimes more) dominant personalities driving party-based coalitions to wins that are substantively indistinguishable. Voters vote for the person, not the program.

Issue-based politics threaten the paramountcy of party over policy. Popular mandates for specific reforms, whether on institutional independence, governance, or electoral reform, shift the terms of political competition from who can best lead the government to who can deliver “brighter tomorrows”.

BNP is no fan of issue-based politics.

Fear Of Slippery Slopes

By implicitly accepting the principle of reform via referendum, the BNP leadership fears opening a Pandora’s box. Give them an inch, the thinking goes, and they’ll take a mile.

Future reform-minded elements will expect similar referendums for similar issues if July 26 is successful. Such popularity cannot be opposed without appearing antidemocratic or reactionary, precisely the trap BNP hopes to lay for the NEXT government.

Fear of future referendums is just that: fear.

Fact: Neither BNP nor any other party has any meaningful legislative program should the referendum succeed and elections be called right away. Any future referendum would be well into the NEXT term of office.

Issue-Based Competition Isn’t Zero-Sum

BNP needs the reform agenda. It is central to the party’s political identity as the principal opposition party during the years of political repression. But allowing reforms to take hold through a referendum prevents the party from claiming ownership of them.

With referendum-driven reform, the substance of reform supersedes political ownership. Who gets credit for restoring electoral fairness, judicial independence, and governance reforms becomes a shared project, not monopolized by any party.

BNP cannot win political credit for goals it did not set.

Nationalist Narrative Interrupted

For as long as it has been politically feasible, BNP has prided itself on monopolizing the nationalist narrative distilled into struggle, resistance, and anti-authoritarianism. The party cannot mobilize popular support around this struggle against itself.

Asking the public to vote for specific reforms takes nationalism off the table as a political tool. Sure, institutions need to be independent. Of course, we should free the judiciary from political influence. Electoral reforms sound great… But who gets to define the reform agenda? Who do you trust with that sacred task?

BNP has spent three long years building distrust in institutions. Why should it change course now? Why put national electionsworthiness in someone else’s hands?

Hold The Phone

The politics of resistance are not limited to the street level.

Sources within BNP report that considerable resistance to reform via referendum comes from within the party's grassroots. Rank-and-file BNP activists and workers, far removed from the vanities of power, are clamoring for reform.

July 26 must appear scary for BNP leadership if they feel the need to muzzle reform-minded activists within their own party.